It is likely that you have come across the term Dark Social even if you are somewhat active on LinkedIn in 2022.

Many marketers and thought leaders have shown great interest in Dark Social on LinkedIn, where there has been an influx of opinions and posts.

B2B Buyer Journey is partially responsible for the buzz around Dark Social. Buyer journeys for B2B products and services have significantly evolved and become very complex over the last decade, especially how buyers learn about products and services in different ways.

To put things into perspective, here is an image from Gartner visualizing B2B buyer's journey -

What is Dark Social?

Marketing professionals use the term dark social to describe web traffic from popular unknown distribution channels that is difficult to precisely track. Despite the high number of B2B buyers at these channels, the company is not going to be able to directly measure the effects of this activity. 

Dark traffic, dark social media, and dark funnel are other terms you may hear to describe this phenomenon. Essentially, all of these describe the same thing. It is important to note, however, that the dark funnel is primarily concerned with intent, not much about the channels. 

Today’s buyers go to learn and discover with industry peers. And that’s how decisions are made. 

The following examples illustrate dark social channels: 

• Social Media Channels - LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

• Podcast and Video Platforms -  Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, etc.

• Private Communities - Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Slack Communities, Online forums, etc.

• Word of Mouth - Texting, WhatsApp, Calls, In-person conversations etc.

• Private Events -  Private Networking Dinners, Virtual events, Meetups, etc.

Dark Social is a phenomenon triggered when a peer shares recommendations about a product or service over one of the marketing distribution channels, resulting in a buyer visiting the company's website.

Dark Social is Not Word-of-Mouth

Here is a snapshot of LinkedIn discussion that I had on this topic:

Evolution of Dark Social

I asked myself this question - why has Dark Social exploded in popularity in recent times? 

I believe it comes down to 3 key factors:

1. Technological advancements

2. Vastly improved distribution

3. Maturing of social media ads platforms

Social media, podcast networks, communication tools, etc., have all become more accessible to regular people over the last decade or so. The beauty of these technological advancements is that they have built-in distribution into the channels. 

For example, Spotify is hosting your podcast for its entire audience without any friction. Anyone can search it, and anyone can play your podcast. 

Anyone can pick up your educational video from TikTok and share it over WhatsApp to their peers. 

Let's talk about social media ad platforms now.

Early on in their development, these platforms focused on attracting more and more advertisers. A great deal of importance was placed on demonstrating the ROI of advertising spends to win the trust of businesses. Thus, pretty much all of these platforms worked to provide trackable links to a business' website or landing pages.

Due to changing habits of people and the growing ability to track and provide adequate analytics on social networks, these big social networks shifted their focus from sending traffic to websites to keeping them on social networks.

People spend more time engaging with content without leaving social networks as in-platform ads become more popular on social networks due to less friction for users. Another reason triggering more dark social behavior. 

What’s Next?

The Dark Social is great, but how do you optimize it? 

Optimizing for Dark Social

This is where the next wave of innovation is going to take place. Slowly more and more people have understood the importance of Dark Social, but the next phase is the optimization of dark social content. 

I am very bullish about marketers finding ways to optimize for dark social, and getting somewhat a handle over scaling these channels.

It's not about improving attribution or tracking, by the way. This is more about building predictability of demand on these channels.

It goes without saying that this is a long game, and is a shift from demand capture to demand creation.

Focus on Zero-Click Content

It might be the platforms’ fault, or perhaps we’ve trained their algorithms to reward platform-native content instead of ours. A zero-click content strategy.

There's no doubt about it: it's harder than ever to get audiences to click on calls-to-action.

Any platform can host this kind of content - a Twitter thread, a LinkedIn message, a 60-second TikTok demonstrating how something works. Anyone scrolling through their feed can easily consume it, yet the creator still gets value from it.

Greater Emphasis on Media Content

More focus on zero-click content strategy means more focus on media content. 

Various formats of video content will continue to be delivered on all social media platforms.

Don't forget: Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts, TikTok Clips, etc.

Rise of Media Content SEO

Once any content gains traction, the next step is search engine optimization. Technically, it is search engine optimization for social networks, not a search engine in the traditional sense. 

Among teens and young adults, TikTok is becoming the place to find information, taking over the functions of established search engines. More than a billion people use the service, which is more than an app where 10-to-25-year-olds can watch video clips.

Downfall of Attribution Software

Another important trend to keep in mind is - the downfall of the attribution software as dark social becomes more and more popular. 

Maybe the end of attribution software?

That’s all for today. Hope you found this post useful, if you did, please share with people in your networks :)

Thank you!